DOI: 10.5176/2315-4330_WNC18.47
Authors: Dr.S.Rajeswari, Dr. N.Sanjeeva Reddy
Abstract:
Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of progressive muscle relaxation on stress, anxiety, and pregnancy outcome among low risk primi mothers. Method: A randomized controlled trial of 250 low risk pregnant women (125 each for intervention and control group) at 21-22 weeks of gestation had been chosen for this study. Permission was obtained from an institutional ethics committee. Pregnant women had been recruited from tertiary care university hospital in South India.Two-session,30-minutes Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) taught for the intervention group and control group followed the routine care. The progressive muscle relaxation therapy consisted of video teaching on 1:1 basis for two consecutive days, participants enacted under supervision and an audio cassette/ CD was issued for self- practice at home once a day for ten weeks. During each visit to antenatal clinic, participant performed PMR under researcher supervision. The data collection components included such as background variables, pregnancy- specific stress scale, anxiety scale was used at 21-22 weeks of gestation and posttest had been conducted at 31-32 weeks. Assessed the labor outcome variable such as the gestational age at birth, mode of delivery, APGAR score, birth weight of newborn at delivery. Postnatal depression was assessed with the help of Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EDPS) at six weeks following delivery. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data.
Result : The Independent ‘t’ test revealed the significant reduction in pregnancy-specific stress (p<0.001), and the decrease in the anxiety (p<0.001) among intervention group compared to the control group (p<0.001). The intervention group had better labor outcome in terms of increased the gestational age at birth with mean difference of one week (p=0.014), more number of vaginal delivery (p<0.001), increased birth weight with mean difference of 120 grams (p=0.001), and the decreased incidence of postpartum depression (p<0.001) than the control group. No change were been found in the APGAR score (p=0.058) among intervention and control group.
Implications: Present study strongly supports that progressive muscle relaxation therapy is a beneficial and widely used mind- body interventional strategy for the relief of stress and anxiety among the general population as well as for pregnant women too. Nurses’ working in the clinical and community setting play a vital role in disseminating evidencebased complementary alternative medicine (CAM) practices to help the pregnant women to balance their psychology and enhance labor outcome such as term delivery, vaginal birth, optimal birth weight and reduced occurrence of postpartum depression.
Keywords: pregnancy, stress, anxiety, progressive muscle relaxation, outcome
Updating...